Angel

23

FANG SPUN AROUND and saw Max standing there, giving him the sardonic smile he knew so well.

“Straight on the fact that we need to work together as a team,” Fang managed to say. His heart contracted painfully inside his chest, then started beating again. “Where’d you come from?”

Max smirked and pointed at the sky, then wriggled a bit, adjusting her wings under her oversized windbreaker. “This was where we were supposed to meet, right?” She scanned the rest of Fang’s gang.

“Yeah,” Fang said, taking a deep breath. God help him, she even smelled familiar. “It’s been a long time.”

“Has it?” Max cocked her head and looked him up and down. “It feels like we just saw each other.”

Fang sighed. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. He’d underestimated how he’d react to her. Way underestimated.

Max flipped her light brown hair over one shoulder, and Fang noticed that she’d dyed a big magenta streak in part of it. Other than that, she looked exactly the same.

Exactly the same as the Max he’d left barely more than a week ago, back in Colorado. He wondered what she was doing now, what she’d think about his joining forces with… her. The other her, that is. Max the Clone. Max II.

“Hi, I’m Kate,” Kate said, extending her hand.

Max II looked at the hand, then shook it, a smile lifting one side of her mouth. Max’s mouth. The mouth Fang had kissed so many times. Blood was rushing through his head, and he needed to clear it, to take control of this situation again. Worse, he had the feeling that this Max knew exactly what he was thinking, could read his mind, and was somehow laughing at him.

“And this is Star,” Kate said, pointing. “And that’s… Ratchet.”

“Yo.” Ratchet had gotten up off the floor, but his hands were buried in the pockets of his hoodie. “Cool hair. Is it dyed in blood or something? ’Cause that would be hard-core.”

Max II snickered, unphased by his comment.

“And what’s your name?” Star asked politely, but in the twenty-four hours Fang had known her, he’d learned to recognize the tone of warning beneath her politeness.

“Her name is—” Fang began, but Max II interrupted him.

“Maya. They call me Maya.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and sat down on one of the beds, daring him to contradict her.

Fang blinked. So she had changed her name. He couldn’t blame her.

“You okay, dude?” Rachet elbowed Fang in the ribs. “You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

Fang nodded his head, avoiding Maya’s eyes. “I’m fine. We just—go back a long time.”

Ratchet eyed the tips of Maya’s wings sticking out of her coat and gave a low whistle. “Say no more, man. I get you. You guys were all Swan Lake, doing the lovebird dance, and now it’s a little Emotions on Ice.” He looked at Kate. “I go for the Wonder Woman type myself.”

Kate’s smooth Asian face flushed bright red, and Star looked disgusted. “Maybe he could use another knee to the jugular,” she suggested.

Maya laughed. “Fun little group you got here.”

Fang forced a smile and nodded. This had been a huge mistake.